Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

Fiscal strategy is relevant to budget, Senator. That might be news to you, but the fact that the government had to alter its fiscal strategy to respond to the global financial crisis is entirely relevant to this question and entirely relevant to the jobs which have been created, the jobs which have been saved and the growth which has been maintained as a result of those fiscal decisions. Those opposite might want to jump up and take pathetic points of order to try to make themselves look like they are part of a schoolboy debating team—I use 'schoolboy' advisedly until Senator Fierravanti-Wells might stand up!—but it demonstrates their complete lack of understanding of what this economy faced during the global financial crisis—